"Well, it's not quite a mop and it's not quite a puppet… but man (laughs). So to answer your question, I don't know." – Homer Simpson, "A Fish Called Selma"

Rosie 2.0

On her new WordPress blog, simply titled “r blog“, Rosie O’Donnell blogs – e e cummings-style – in lower-case verse as oppossed to prose. Her previous blogspot blog, formerlyrosie, contained the same content and garnered quite a bit of attention. I even mentioned it on The Blahg.

Rosie continues her quirky, captivating ways here. I’m enthralled by someone who achieved her level of fame and noteriety who is able to open up and really be herself. She’s not pretentious or fake at all. This is her life, transparent and raw, for everyone to see.

Heck, she even took the plunge and started using Flickr. If only I were so brave. She’s unabashedly gushing about her loves, her partner and her children, and equally passionate about her political views. This is a person leading the blog life – open, honest and completely transparent.

I think more celebrities should start blogging just as like Kevin Smith & Zach Braff have. I think anything that humanizes these people in our eyes will lessen the effects of our tabloid culture. If you can hear in their own words, how much these people are affected by paparazzi and tabloids you’d be less likely to pick up a gossip rag, right? Just a thought. I don’t want to feed the trolls. Knowing more about these people as individuals, straight from their keyboards, and not archetypes or soundbites lets me into their lives in a way no Us/InTouch/People story ever could.

In any event, I think Rosie deserves a great deal of credit. Few non-celebrity bloggers are jumping in to this new medium with the verve and whole-heartedness of a Rosie O’Donnell. We should all sit up, take notice and applaud her efforts. This is what “new” new media is all about.